


Jon At The Bar Is A Friend Of Mine

by noblet



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Spouse, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 18:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11447004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblet/pseuds/noblet
Summary: Jon worries about the consequences that come with making their relationship publicly known.





	Jon At The Bar Is A Friend Of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Summer has made me dumber and I am therefore unable to write anything substantial. Here's a fic I wrote in April. The title comes from Billy Joel's Piano Man. Takes place in 2014.

It is during nights like these that Jon wonders what life would be like without the fame. To go through his days unrecognized. To be a nobody in a world of nobodies.

It is during nights like these that he yearns for the normalcy of a regular office job, to clock in clock out, personal life separated far from the professional. It is during nights like these that he wishes he could drop his worries, the scandal fears, the dreaded tabloid hypotheticals.

He wishes that he could do whatever he wanted without some gaudy TMZ article half-reporting on it the next day, sans nonconsensual photo and a quote pulled irrefutably out of context.

He wonders aloud to Stephen- Stephen, who, for the most part, enjoys his fame.

“You worry too much,” he always tells him.

“Funny,” Jon sighs. “Sometimes I worry that I don't worry enough.”

“You must be fun at parties.”

“I don't _go_ to parties.”

“Willingly,” Stephen cracks, and then leans over to plant a kiss on his shoulder. “My Christmas parties notwithstanding.”

Jon knows it would be characteristic for him to disagree, so he bites back whatever retort his subconscious had developed. Instead, he turns to face Stephen, and can barely make out the silhouette of his face through unpartitioned curtains. “But of course.”

He chastises himself for being so stressed out because he knows that Stephen doesn't care about the things he frets over.

“What's the worse that could happen?” Stephen always asks, but his tone is more curious than accusatory. “People have had theories about us for years.” The statement intends to get a laugh out of him, but Jon continues staring at the ceiling as if nothing had been said.

“I don't know,” Jon responds. “I don't know. I don't know. I just don't have the time to _deal_ -”

“Does anyone? Here, look at me.”

Jon looks at him.

“I love you-” Stephen says it so sincerely that Jon almost forgets what he was worried about in the first place. “-and your fans love you, and I promise with all my heart that they’ll continue to love you whenever you decide to come out with this.”

The way Stephen’s looking at him. _Jesus._

“I will,” Jon says. “Make an announcement, I mean. Official, whatever. Just not- not _now_. And not tomorrow, either. I don't know.”

“Take your time. Think about it.” Stephen understands. Stephen _always_ understands.

Still, Jon’s inner turmoil does not stop.

“People are going to hate us,” he thinks aloud. 

“People already hate us.”

“We’re going to get death threats.”

Stephen snorts. “Half of my fanmail consists of death threats.”

“Don't talk about it like that,” Jon says.

“Like what?”

“You talk about it like it’s no big deal. It's like you don't even care that there are real people who are so sick in their minds that they want to see you dead. Do you know how often I’d worry whenever the show would send you out to Smalltown, USA? People with radical views like that- some have no inhibition.”

“I care, I really do,” Stephen says. Maybe now is not the time to joke around. “I just- you can't worry about it too much, you know? There’s only so much I can do about it.”

“I know.”

“I'm sorry,” Stephen says. “Here, forget about it all until tomorrow. I hate seeing you like this. Distraught is not a good look on you, just like that beard you had last month.”

Jon fails to contain his sudden laughter and he almost chastises Stephen for pulling him out of his mood. He takes a deep breath.

“I know I didn't say it back when you said it earlier, but I love you too, you know,” Jon says.

“I know.”

“Stephen Colbert,” Jon’s voice is so soft that it sounds foreign even to him. “You are the best worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

Stephen’s hand finds Jon’s and they intertwine fingers in the dark.

There’s a smile in his voice when he speaks. “Likewise.”


End file.
